By Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for CoinWeek Notes …..
Launched on March 27, 2023, the 2023-P American Ladies Quarter honoring Edith Kanakaʻole was the second of 5 designs launched in 2023 and the seventh coin within the 20-coin American Ladies Quarters program. Licensed by Public Law 116-330 (PDF link), the sequence started in 2022 and can proceed by 2025, with every year seeing 5 new reverse designs commemorating the achievements and legacies of traditionally and culturally important girls. It follows the profitable 50 State Quarters and America the Lovely Nationwide Park Quarters applications and the Washington Crossing the Delaware one-year reverse sort of 2021.
Who Was Edith Kanakaʻole and Why Is She on the Quarter?
Edith Kanakaʻole (“Aunty Edith”) was a Native Hawaiian hula dancer, choreographer, composer, and instructor who labored to protect and transmit conventional Hawaiian tradition. She was an essential hyperlink between the impartial Kingdom of Hawai’i and the resurgence of Native tradition within the mid-Twentieth century and past. Born Edith Kekuhikuhipu‘uoneonāali‘iōkohala Kenao in 1913, she realized conventional Hawaiian dance (hula) from her mom and music from her father. After World Battle II, Kanakaʻole grew to become a composer of songs and oli, or conventional Hawaiian chants, and created hula dances to accompany them. Earlier than the United States Territory of Hawai’i grew to become the fiftieth state in 1959, she toured North America and Asia together with her dance troupe, serving as an envoy of Hawaiian tradition. After statehood, she continued to show conventional tradition to future generations, guaranteeing the survival and nourishment of Native Hawaiian society into the twenty first century.
Kanakaʻole died on October 3, 1979. She is the primary Native Hawaiian girl on a U.S. coin.
On Saturday, Could 6, 2023, the Mint held a launch ceremony for Edith Kanakaʻole Quarters on the Performing Arts Middle on the campus of the College of Hawai’i at Hilo. The video beneath is a recording of the occasion.
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Market Knowledge and Noteworthy Specimens
The American Ladies Quarters sequence has been pretty nicely obtained by the general public and collectors have been enthusiastic. The mix of fascinating historic figures and strong, generally extremely modern (see the 2023-D Jovita Idar Quarter), designs could possibly be liable for this heightened degree of pleasure.
Apart from the same old banking channels, the Mint additionally made the 2023-P Edith Kanaka’ole Quarter obtainable to collectors within the 2023 American Ladies Quarter Set, the 2023 Uncirculated Coin Set, and in bag and roll product choices. Baggage containing 100 cash have been bought for $45 (a $20 premium over the full face worth). Rolls have been bought in two-roll units that includes quarters from the Philadelphia and Denver mints for $40 and three-roll (Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco) units for $60. Whereas the three-roll set goes for a $30 premium as an alternative of the $20 surcharge of the two-roll set, collectors should choose the three-roll set since rolls of the 2023-S have been solely obtainable on this ordering possibility.
As of November 2024, NGC data 561 grading occasions for the 2023-P quarter, most of that are licensed MS66 (462) and MS67 (317). There is just one high pop MS69 specimen listed and 60 cash graded MS68.
PCGS data 578 whole grading occasions, with72 on the high pop of MS67. A lot of the PCGS licensed items are graded MS66 (425), and none grade decrease than MS62. A PCGS First Strike MS66 bought on eBay for $18.99 on October 22, 2024, however you will need to do not forget that as extra cash get graded, this worth will come down – because it does for nearly all current fashionable points.
CAC Grading has neither stickered nor licensed any 2023-P Edith Kanakaʻole Quarters.
Uncirculated cash in uncooked type have bought lately on eBay for about $1.50 to $4.00.
Prime Inhabitants: PCGS MS67 (72, 11/2024), NGC MS69 (1, 11/2024), and CAC N/A (0:0 stickered:graded, 11/2024).
- PCGS MS66: eBay, October 22, 2024, Lot 405263034686 – $18.99. First Strike American Flag label.
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Coin Design
Obverse:
As a substitute of a model of John Flanagan’s bust of George Washington that has been on the entrance of the quarter since 1932, the widespread obverse of all American Ladies Quarters depicts a right-facing portrait of Washington initially sculpted by artist Laura Gardin Fraser to mark Washington’s two hundredth birthday. Although her work was a really useful design for the 1932 quarter, then-Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon in the end chosen the acquainted Flanagan design.
The phrase LIBERTY wraps clockwise across the rim above Washington’s head. The motto IN GOD / WE / TRUST is split in three strains to his left, and the date 2023 and P mintmark are beneath his chin in descending order. Laura Gardin Fraser’s initials LGF are within the truncation of Washington’s neck on the left.
Reverse:
Edith Kanakaʻole’s face is on the correct of the quarter’s reverse, sporting a lei poʻo or head lei that merges alongside together with her hair into the volcanic panorama of her native Hawai’i. The lei is a garland of flowers, generally fruit, which might be strung or woven collectively and given to folks for a wide range of causes {that a} typically honorific. Like hula, lei are a part of the advanced matrix of objects and which means in Native Hawaiian tradition. A river or waterway winds by the island towards the mountain on the left facet of the coin.
Between her face and the river is her identify, EDITH KANAKA’OLE. Above the reverse design, in one thing of an “exergue” on the highest is the legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA divided into two strains. Beneath the panorama is the denomination 25¢, and beneath that’s the Hawaiian inscription E hō mai ka ʻike, which interprets to “Granting the Knowledge”. The motto E PLURIBUS UNUM is titled alongside the left facet of the design.
Creative Infusion Program designer Emily Damstra created the design; her initials ESD are to the correct of E PLURIBUS UNUM. Mint Medallic Artist Renata Gordon engraved the design; her initials RG are beneath Edith Kanakaʻole’s face.
The next is a video from the United States Mint discussing the 2023 American Ladies Edith Kanakaʻole Quarter:
Edge:
The sting of the 2023-P Edith Kanakaʻole Quarter is reeded with 119 reeds.
Designers
Laura Gardin Fraser was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1889. After receiving an schooling on the Columbia College and later on the Artwork College students League of New York, the place she studied beneath her future husband James Earle Fraser. Laura Gardin Fraser died in 1966. In 2022, the portrait of George Washington that she submitted for the Washington Quarter changed John Flanagan’s long-running portrait (submitted in the identical competitors) during the American Ladies Quarters Program.
Emily Damstra has labored as a contract science illustrator in a wide range of media. She has a Masters in Positive Arts in Science Illustration from the College of Michigan and has designed a number of cash for the Royal Canadian Mint (View Designer’s Profile).
A graduate of the College of the Arts in Philadelphia, Medallic Artist Renata Gordon created a number of designs for the First Partner and America the Lovely Quarters applications (View Designer’s Profile).
2023-P American Ladies Edith Kanakaʻole Quarter Coin Specs
| Nation: | United States of America |
| Yr of Problem: | 2023 |
| Denomination: | Quarter Greenback (25 Cents USD) |
| Mintmark: | P (Philadelphia) |
| Mintage: | 372,800,000 |
| Alloy: | .750 copper, .250 nickel outer layer, bonded to pure copper inside core |
| Weight: | 5.67 g |
| Diameter: | 24.26 mm |
| Edge: | Reeded |
| OBV Designer: | Laura Gardin Fraser |
| REV Designer: | Emily Damstra | Renata Gordon |
| High quality: | Enterprise Strike |
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